


Mirror, Mirror

by snailjamsge



Category: Original Work
Genre: Age, Dark, Drama, Gothicism, Handmaiden - Freeform, Maiden, Medieval, Poetry, Prose Poem, Queen - Freeform, iambic, mirror, poem, southern gothicism, trochaic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-02
Updated: 2020-11-02
Packaged: 2021-03-09 08:54:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 345
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27348490
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snailjamsge/pseuds/snailjamsge
Summary: A poem about a Queen with wrinkles and her handmaidens who must clean the Queen's mirror
Comments: 1
Kudos: 2





	Mirror, Mirror

From the mirror’s polished porcelain rim clasp Her Majesty’s handmaidens’ hands.  
They polish the mirror with careful fervor  
Lest the Queen spy a speck whilst dressing.  
“Oh!” The Queen shouts out, “a spot!”

And the handmaidens keep cleaning, keep cleaning till the morning dawn breaks.  
“There is no speck,” they say with aged outstretched palms pointing to the mirror.  
“It shines like no other. Your glass lies placid. Your mirror is clean.”  
The Queen surmises the situation, peering into the deep dark sleep-deprived hollows for eyes  
and cries out once more –  
“You three must be mistaken –” pressing her hands upon the door,  
“There are spots on my face, and I want those spots to be no more!  
Why else do I see them only upon the mirror’s glass?”  
“Queen—”  
“Nobody spies them once I leave this dorm.”

One maiden speaks up, her voice hard and cold,  
“We have cleaned the mirror’s spots; shall we clean yours?”  
“But I have no spots! I am elegant and fair, but I despair that wrenched mirror flings its spots onto me.”

Another maiden steps forward –  
“The mirror is clean, my queen. Let us fix your face instead.”  
But the Queen does not believe her maidens who she oh so adores.

She slings a vase against the polished piece  
And the mirror swings back –  
Glassy shards scraping her face’s sides.  
“The mirror maimed me! ‘Twas a dirty, wrenched being!”

The three maidens, old from age, tired from cleaning, only stare at the shards upon the floor.  
“Queen, we must beseech you. That which lies upon the floor is glass, nothing more.  
It could not hurt you.”

Bubbles of blood and icy glass fall as tears from Her face.  
“It hurt me, messed with me, maimed me, and it shall pay.”  
The Queen storms out, the glass still upon the floor, the blood still pouring over her face’s wrinkles.

The third maiden whispers, “our Queen has no wrinkles. She is beautiful and fair.”

But the mirror upon the floor could not say otherwise lest it found itself more and more alone.


End file.
